


Last of Days

by blackkat



Series: Mace Windu prompts [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, clone culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22141798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Ryloth was never going to be an easy planet to win back, but Ponds doesn’t think it’s wrong to say that none of them expected it to be likethis.
Relationships: CC-6454 | Ponds & Mace Windu
Series: Mace Windu prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941517
Comments: 20
Kudos: 719





	Last of Days

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Ponds finds his general grieving during a brief moment of downtime. Mace takes the interruption better than Ponds was expecting.

Ryloth was never going to be an easy planet to win back, but Ponds doesn’t think it’s wrong to say that none of them expected it to be like _this_.

The bombed-out village is right on the edge of the desert, and even the night is hot, too dry. Ponds walks though rubble and ashes, trying not to think about the claustrophobic stickiness of his armor. It seems like too small a thing to worry about when so many people lost their homes, lost _everything_.

Of course, what’s happened has happened, and all they can do is keep moving. Syndulla set a punishing pace all day, only made quicker every time they came upon a destroyed town, and all Ponds wants to do is find a place to bed down and sleep for as long as he’ll be allowed. The general is missing, though, and it’s Ponds’s duty to make sure he’s all right, both in battle and out of it. That’s enough to push him on, and he hauls himself up the slope towards the top of the hill they camped under.

Stak and Razor are about halfway up it, sharing their rations with a tired, determined cheer that will hopefully keep them going through tomorrow. As Ponds approaches, Razor glances up and waves a hand, and says, “Commander. Looking for a quiet spot?”

“Would I have come to you, then?” Ponds retorts, and Stak snickers and shoves Razor’s knee with a foot.

“Got you there, vod,” he says, and Razor rolls his eyes.

“You talk more than me, _mirsh'kyramud_ ,” he accuses, and then pauses, glancing back at Ponds. “Looking for the general?” he asks.

Ponds nods. Every clone in the Grand Army of the Republic will look out for their Jedi, but he was personally assigned to Mace Windu, and he’s going to live up to the faith that was put in him. “He come this way?”

Razor and Stak trade looks, just briefly. “Yeah,” Stak says, and hooks a thumb up towards the southernmost hill in the ring. “He headed up that direction, but…Commander, I don’t think you should disturb him.”

Ponds grimaces. He’s well aware that Mace used to be the Master of the Jedi Order, that he’s one of the most talented Jedi. Aware, too, that he’s brusque and sharp-tongued and always at least a little suspicious, but—

“If the Seppies have a surprise waiting for the Jedi, I don’t want to get caught off guard,” he says. “I’ll keep my distance, but I don’t think he should be out here alone.”

“Your funeral, vod,” Razor says, and lifts his canteen in toast. Ponds rolls his eyes and nods in thanks, then keeps walking. Up on the hilltop, it’s easier to move, and there’s a faint breeze from the east. In the south, the sun is a thin ring of red on the horizon, almost completely vanished, but there’s enough light for Ponds to make out the dark shape sitting in the scrubby grass, legs crossed and hands upturned on his knees. His face is still, and as Ponds approaches he hesitates, suddenly unsure. If the general is resting—

“Commander,” Mace says, and his eyes slide open, slow. There's a pause as he regards Ponds, and then he asks, “Trapper?”

Ponds is always surprised, at least a little, that Mace remembers all the troopers in their unit by name, that he knows after a battle who’s been hurt and who’s been lost. Not that other Jedi generals don’t, but—Mace goes out of his way to find out immediately, and remember. He saves troopers on the battlefield, too, to the point of putting himself at risk for them.

 _It’s supposed to be the other way around_ , Ponds wants to tell him. _We’re supposed to die for you, not you for us_.

He doesn’t need to be as familiar with Mace as he is to know that wouldn’t be anywhere close to welcome, though.

“Looks like he’ll make a full recovery, sir,” he says. “The medics got to him in time.”

Mace inclines his head. “And Shock?”

Ponds swallows. “Gone, sir.”

Mace isn't an expressive man, but Ponds can see the twist of grief across his face, the way he carefully keeps himself from faltering. He nods again, sharp, and looks away.

“That brings our losses up to forty-seven,” he says.

Ponds doesn’t doubt he knows every name among the fallen. “Yes, sir,” he says quietly, and—

Realizes, sudden and stark, why Mace is meditating up here, why the grief he normally hides is easy to read. Mourning, alone, over clone troopers under his command, and Ponds has to swallow carefully.

“Sorry, sir,” he says. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll leave you to—”

“No,” Mace says, and meets Ponds’s gaze. “They were my men, but they were your brothers. If you want to be up here, Ponds, you have every right.”

Slowly, carefully, still wary of his welcome, Ponds sinks down to the ground, settling a pace away from Mace's spot. “I—our trainers, on Kamino,” he says. “They were Mandalorians. Had a phrase. _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la_.”

Mace closes his eyes and takes a breath. “Not gone, merely marching far away,” he translates, a wry curl to the edge of his mouth, and then raises a hand in front of him, fingers curled. “The Jedi would say they became one with the Force.”

Ponds watches him for a moment, considering. Remembering, too, his first glimpse of Mace on Geonosis, when he had no idea of how to even interact with the Jedi High Council and its master. He hadn’t expected to be assigned to him, certainly.

“It’s the same thing, in the end, isn't it?” he asks. Turns, because it feels too fraught to keep looking at Mace, but—the sight of the bombed-out village isn't a comfort, either. “They’re somewhere else, and we’re still here, and we need to finish what we started so that it’s worth something, losing them.”

Mace's breath is slow, steady. “Everything moves as the Force wills it,” he says quietly. “It’s hard to remember that sometimes. Especially now. But nothing is worthless, and especially not the lives lost here.”

“No,” Ponds agrees, because he’s seen the Twi’lek people they’ve saved, the ones they still need to save. They’re liberating a planet from forces that think nothing of firebombing whole villages into rubble, and that will never be a bad thing.

It doesn’t make the losses hurt any less, but it makes it easier to move forward in the face of them.

Mace isn't Mandalorian, isn't a clone, but even so, Ponds feels the old words on his tongue, and closes his eyes. Somehow, he’s sure Mace will appreciate them like a brother would.

“ _Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum_ ,” he starts, and feels Mace's eyes on him, the weight of his attention.

 _I'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal_. It’s a clone’s mourning, a way to remember more than number designations and the titles they were assigned. A way to remember that they're still alive, and there’s a reason for it.

When he opens his eyes, Mace has his head bowed. “Shock,” he says quietly. “Ayo, Twist, Blowback, March.”

He knows them all, without hesitation and without faltering. Somehow, that does make the losses a little easier to take, and Ponds joins him, a quiet murmur of names in the darkness, remembering the lost.


End file.
